The reason why is that I was always comparing myself to my older sister Mariah, who couldn't help being extremely talented. She was always the one that everybody wanted their portrait drawn by, not me. She was good at likenesses, and I was queen of doodling. I had accepted that I would never be as good as my sister at what I considered professional art (aka realistic portraits.)
When Mariah got busier with school, she handed down the title of family artist to me. She was tired of painting everybody's portrait.
With this new honor came new opportunities, and my sister, Susanna https://twitter.com/suzols , asked me to illustrate the children's book she had written for our niece who was yet to be born. Thrilled at this very first commission, I accepted immediately, before she regretted her decision choosing the doodler, rather than the fine artist. Not so immediate was the actual illustrating. See, by the time the baby was born I had somehow only drawn one picture. Let's just say I wasn't used to making full illustrations, especially ones of baby squirrels, which I had never drawn before in my life. Susanna was gracious enough to try to keep the anger out of her voice when she said, "Fine, but you absolutely must finish by her first birthday."
And so I did, with the help of some "inspiration" (aka watching one Korean drama for every illustration drawn.) But because I had almost no experience making full colored illustrations, almost every illustration looked like it came from a different story. Still, when the printed version finally came in the mail, I'd never been prouder of myself. I didn't consider myself a professional yet, but after that it became a more serious hobby, and I began to see the advantages of actually practicing with a purpose.
Here is where the iPad Pro comes in. I bought it after reaching the halfway point of saving up for a Cintiq Companion and giving up. I'm so glad I did. I took the iPad Pro with me everywhere; on car drives, to babysitting jobs... I am confident that it would have been a different picture had I gone with the five-pound, 6-hour-battery Cintiq Companion.
With that flexibility, I was able to make a few good pieces, which I randomly put on a website called 'Upwork' which I found via a list of ways teens could make money online. A few days later, to my flabbergastment, I got an email saying that somebody wanted to hire me after seeing my portfolio! (And price tag.) I took the job illustrating a thirty-two page children's book, which I would never have had the confidence to take had I not known that all I needed to do was find another Korean drama equivalent.
And yet, I hadn't taken into account the fact that my expectations would have to be so much higher. After all, I was getting paid. Artists in their natural state don't tend to like restrictions, and working for a client can seem binding at times. But making art under these circumstances proved to be twice as educational, and definitely crucial to my growth.
I had many ups and downs, and surprisingly enough it was during one of the downs that I wrote this blog post: 5 reasons why illustrating is the best job ever. Because even during the downs I knew that I was learning, and I knew that it was all going to be worth it in the end, when I was holding that physical copy of my hard work in my hands. I won't ever get over that feeling, which is why I won't ever stop illustrating.
I'm so thankful that I got to jumpstart my career in such a major way, and I think other kids can have just the same advantages if they get started right away. Because in the end, talent vs no talent is simply the difference between a seedling and a seed; they both have to be cared for in the same way to be able to grow. Wherever you lie on the spectrum, I guarantee that with enough effort, you can go as far as anybody else.